MRI: Acquisition of a Zeiss Elyra Super Resolution Microscope for BRC Imaging facility at Cornell

Cornell University, Ithaca NY

Investigators

Abstract

An award is made to Cornell University to support the acquisition and technical management of a new type of light microscope that provides the resolution to see and differentiate features in living cells as small as 20 nm, or 5000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. This is more than a 10 fold improvement over what is achievable using a conventional light microscope. In addition to enabling new avenues of biological and biomedical research that are now impossible without it, the instrument will be located in the Cornell Imaging Core Facility so that it is open and available to investigators and students from all areas of scientific research inside and outside of Cornell. The imaging facility has a steady flow of students passing through it due to its participation in the numerous outreach programs occurring at Cornell. The facility hosts educational workshops and supports STEM initiatives on campus by providing tours and demonstration modules for a wide range of outreach activities. In particular, broadening the participation of women and under-represented minorities in engineering and biotechnology is a major focus at Cornell, and the facility routinely offers unique imaging laboratory modules for programs such as CATALYST and Expand Your Horizons. The acquisition of a unique and cutting edge super-resolution light microscope will provide graduate, undergraduate and local and visiting high school students with access to a type of instrument not available anywhere else in the region. It will make students of all ages aware of the remarkable developments in technology and engineering that are continually advancing fields such as imaging, and let them see the inner workings of living cells in ways that no one has ever before seen. The newly acquired microscope will be used in variety of research projects ranging from high resolution studies of the cellular biochemical signaling machinery, to investigations into the molecular structure of cellulose in research directed at improving biofuels. It will allow for the spatial, temporal and functional relationships between, for example, proteins that regulate transcription and the gene being transcribed to be mapped and quantified. The field of super-resolution microscopy is in its infancy and new and important applications of optical super-resolution are being demonstrated in all areas of the life sciences at a remarkable rate. Cornell has a high level of microscopy and biological imaging experience and a particularly broad repertoire of applications, and as such, is an ideal site for an instrument such as this to be located. The extensive microscopy expertise available at Cornell will lead to synergistic advances in biological imaging and extend the emerging field of super resolution microscopy through the development of new methodologies tailored for the specific applications of the investigators. This type of synergy will translate into the most significant and broadest possible impact of the research carried out using the instrument, and ultimately advance the knowledge base and understanding across diverse fields as the results are published and new technology broadly utilized.